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The Civil Rights Movement: The Black Panther Party

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The Black Panther Party was created as an organization of a much larger movement stemming from the late 1960s, the Black Power Movement. The term Black Power began its popular use in June 1966 (Tyner, 2008). In 1966, the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi, James Meredith, was shot and killed during a one-man march. After the tragedy, the activist Stokely Carmichael encouraged others to continue Meredith’s march with chants of “Black Power” (Tyner, 2008). The BPM was built from the left residue of the Civil Rights Movement. The actors who moved into the Black Power Movement, even after the many achievements of the Civil Rights Movement, believed inequality still heavily existed and the best way to fight it would be …show more content…
A strategy is just the overall main goal of a social movement, while tactics are the individual actions the actors partake in to reach the goal. By this definition, the Black Panther Party’s strategy was to build a better and stronger black community through education, fair housing, equal employment opportunities, and fighting against discrimination (O’Boyle, 2013). They created many different innovative tactics to reach these goals such as policing the police. During this time, police brutality was evident especially in the minority community. Both Seale and Newton believed no one supported or protected their community as police unrightfully used their power against them, so they believed it was theirs and their community job to do so. They trained themselves and others in gun safety, rights, and laws (O’Boyle, 2013). The BPP also armed themselves with law books and tape recorders, so when they saw an officer of the law conducting an act of civil disobedience they would be able to record what the officer was doing wrong and teach the officer why it was wrong (). The police patrolling tactic spread across the country with even more people patrolling every single day. The BPP community programs were also innovative tactics to help build a stronger autonomous community. The Black Panthers also made sure to stay in the media to draw …show more content…
Their initial strategies was to unite the black community to build and fight. They used many tactics to accomplish these goals some of them being direct aggressive techniques, while others helped build social programs to support their community. The BPP were the main volunteers in most of these programs, but they also had to get help from community professionals and business owners. The Black Panthers did a great job at creating successful plans that supported and fulfilled their

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